


Perchance to Dream

by EK (ilyat)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alcohol, F/M, Size Kink, bucketlist
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-29
Updated: 2012-03-29
Packaged: 2017-11-02 17:36:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/371580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ilyat/pseuds/EK
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They've both their own reasons for continually seeking out these dream bubbles time and time again. For her, she drinks to sleep and escape the reality of the Batterwitch and everything she's brought with her into her world. For him, he waits, awake and apart from the horrorterrors and everyone else, for when he can drift through the dream bubbles, leaving behind the filthy truth of what all has happened on his meteor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Perchance to Dream

**Author's Note:**

> Anon at bucketlist asked for:
> 
>  
> 
> _Rage vs. Void_
> 
>  
> 
> _...alternatively or subsequently, she gets him drunk and there is epic cuddling._

When she sleeps, she dreams - and she dreams that she is awake, in another place and in other times. The only problem with being the hero of void is that sometimes (too often) her powers backfire on her, and even her thoughts and memories are hidden from her own mind. When she wakes, she can never remember a damned thing that's happened.

Well, not _nothing_. There are bits and pieces, all broken up like some stained glass window that's been shattered for years, its pieces scattered to the wind - with just a flash of color here or there that hints at what might've been before. What the picture might've looked like. It's never enough, though.

She's okay with that, because if she weren't, she knows it'd drive her crazy.

When she drinks, she sleeps more heavily. When she drinks, she dreams more vividly. And, sometimes, (she thinks but isn't quite sure) she even starts to remember.

\---

At first, everything is black. But it's not bad. It's familiar.

She's been here before. Maybe it wasn't this exact place or time, but the veil itself still carries with it that shared sense of continuity within the places that pass between. It's fluid, shifting, but still the same - like water filling in the cracks between stepping stones. She doesn't quite hold her breath, but she waits in anticipation to see just what it'll bring this time.

Then there is light.

It's slow to build, and subtle, and at first it's hard to tell if there really are colors anywhere or if it's all just a wash of black and indigo, shadows and darkness. Her eyes - her mind - begins to adjust to the newness, and she glides forward on an unseen breeze.

There is a bubble. It looks like shifting glass, both tiny and massive at the same time. She approaches it until it dwarfs her, and she holds out a hand, pressing against the surface. It feels cool and slippery and ethereal, utterly alien and completely familiar. She smiles and pushes through, her feet finding traction on ground again - on a wood-paneled floor - and suddenly she is in another world with familiar rules like gravity and inertia, and she stumbles as this other world looks so much like her own.

She's standing in the foyer of her own house, only there's real light shining through the windows - and they're _real_ windows instead of just the holographic-and-sometimes-teleportational portals that have always been the only reason why she's managed to survive beneath her house, traveling through fenestrated planes unseen by the drones, for so long. Her breath hitches, and she feels her pulse race, and for a moment she panics, certain that they're lying in wait.

But it's not real. It's not her home. It's ... someone else's memory of a home that looks the same (and yet is completely different) and she can't help but wonder just who it belongs to. (And she can't help wonder if it'd be better if she didn't know.) She tries to not think about her mother, separated by centuries and universes. She tries, and she fails.

A faint chime jars her out of her thoughts and memories. The sound of someone moving within the house puts her on her guard again.

Slowly, quietly, she walks down the hall. She's practiced at moving that way, unnoticed and undetected. She's had a lot of time to go at it. But that one damned loose board still squeaks when she puts her weight on it, oh so faintly, and she knows the ruse is up even as she freezes mid-step.

"Ain't no sense just sneaking around, pitter patter, pitter patter, like a motherfucking tiny squeakbeast when there's good eats a-waiting," drawls a low voice from within the kitchen. (She knows it's the kitchen, first opening on the left; it's her house. Sort of.) "Even if you are just stuck in this here bubble, waiting for it to pop and all up and fade away just like the rest of 'em. At least enjoy what time you have in this fine motherfucker while you've still got it."

She unfreezes, straightens; she even smiles as she walks the rest of the way as if she were taking a Sunday stroll in a park for the first time in her entire life. The patterns of color flowing through the windows are painted in garish pastel, and they make the house look more alive than it ever did before.

"Heeeey~" She calls out, doing a fancy spin on one foot as she rounds the corner. It's not quite a pirouette, but that's okay. It's still fun. She grins at the troll who's bent over by the oven at the far end of the kitchen. He's still young and is dressed in what look like pajamas that hang almost too loose on his gangly form. His hair is a messy tangle, falling around his face and shoulders like a wild mane. His horns are tall and curling, sort of like a corkscrew with the way they twist in a gentle spiral. She's always liked that imagery about him, though it's one of the few things she hasn't yet told him in all of the times they've met each other in the dream bubbles so far. "Aren't you full of surprises. I didn't know you cooked for reals."

"Hell yeah, sister," he says, pulling a sickly green pie out of the oven. It smells terrible, like curdled milk or overripe fruit that's been left out in the summer sun. "Pie's my specialty. Used to eat these motherfuckers all the time back home, before I realized that they all up and messed with my thinkpan."

"Oooh, _those_ pies." She watches him stand up and set the tin on the counter to cool. It doesn't start to smell any better now that she knows just what's in it. She crosses over to take a closer look at it anyway. "Where'd you get sopor for it here? This looks like an Earth dream bubble, not one of the ones from your group. Oh, no wait, let me guess-" She leans back against the counter and leers up at him. He's tall enough that he has to duck just a little bit or risk digging into the ceiling with his horn tips. " _Miracles,_ obvs. Am I right?"

He laughs. It still sounds too strained, too calculated, but it always has. "That's the motherfucking truth, my little sister." But at least he laughs, now. He didn't at first. "Seems a motherfucking shame to let a pie like this go to waste, though, especially after it was all those miracles that were put into making it dream-real. Don't suppose a sister wants to try some, since this motherfucker can't touch it no more."

"Yeah..." _About that..._ She considers her options, and she's pretty sure that intentionally ingesting sopor of unknown and dubious origins - even if it has been cooked - is pretty low on the priority list. Especially considering that everything she's heard has said that it's the worst possible thing for a troll to eat. And she's finding it more and more convincing that sopor is one of those ingredients with a long, unpronounceable name listed on the back of everything that the Batterwitch sells, the type of complex word where no one really knows just what it is. The prospect of eating a pie full of the stuff doesn't quite hold up against her test of madrigogs. She decides that redirection is the better course of action. "How about we let it sit and cool off for a while first. And in the _meeeeantime_ , I've got a better idea."

"Whatcha got in mind, sister?" His grin's still there, and if he realizes that his pie's really going to waste after all, he doesn't seem offended in the least. "You know I'm all about trying new things."

"'kay, see," she says, already almost-pirouetting out of the kitchen to where she just knows the liquor cabinet should be. (Where it is. And it looks completely the same, even if the warm pastel glow from outside makes the wood seem richer in hue.) "This is a _human_ house, which means that whoever lived here had good stash, unless they were completely and utterly batshit insane. You know what I'm talking about, riiiight? A little something something to keep your nerves settled, let you enjoy all of the free will you've got left in all the whole shitty world. Universe. Univers _es_. And I _totes_ guarantee it's not gonna rot your thinkpan."

Already she's got the glass doors open and is picking through the bottles. They're .. slightly different from the ones she remembers. Maybe. Or maybe she's just forgotten what she's had in stock last. But they're familiar enough in how they're ordered that she wastes no time in picking out the tequila. It's a brand new bottle, just like she knew it'd be; tequila's really the only one that _has_ to be shared, which is why it's always sat there alone and untouched. There’s more than enough Cointreau, and she's pretty damn sure that there should be some lime juice in the fridge. If there isn't, then it'd be a crying shame. "It might kill your liver, though," she adds, then asks in an afterthought, "Do trolls even have livers?"

"No motherfucking clue," he rumbles, just behind her, and for a brief instant she's completely unnerved at just how well he can be _silent_ when he wants to, or even when he's not thinking about it, like some giant murder-meowbeast on the prowl. She covers it by grabbing a pair of glasses - not caring that they're way too narrow and meant for wine - and turning around on the spot to simper up at him. "Would you like to partake?" she asks, affecting an exaggerated British accent like she's always imagined Jake to have while raising both glasses and the bottle in his general direction. She maybe wiggles her eyebrows and winks, too.

For a moment, he hesitates. He takes the bottle out of her hand and brings it up to look at more closely, turning it over to inspect the label. He can't read it, she knows; it's written in English and it's not one of those newer types that has both that and the alien text printed on the side. But she doesn't insult him by pointing that out. When he finally says something, his voice is low and all kinds of serious. "This isn't going to knock me off my clean streak, is it? That's the last motherfucking thing I need right now what with everything finally being so motherfucking clear and making all kinds of wicked sense."

They've both their own reasons for continually seeking out these dream bubbles time and time again. For her, she drinks to sleep and escape the reality of the Batterwitch and everything she's brought with her into her world. For him, he waits, awake and apart from the horrorterrors and everyone else, for when he can drift through the dream bubbles, leaving behind the filthy truth of what all has happened on his meteor.

He told her about it once. Exactly once. She's pretty sure he didn't tell her exactly everything, but hearing about the bloodbath and how big of a role in it he really played was still pretty bad in and of itself.

"I don't think it works that way," she finally says. "I mean, I drink this shit all the time. _Allllllll_ the time. Well, I mean, not _this_ specifically, but the alcohol in general. Nothing says good morning like a nice bottle of wine. Except maybe two bottles. _Anyway_ ," she stands on her toes to grab at the drink, setting down the glasses long enough to open it. "I figure we can take it slow, right? You try a little, we see how it goes, and I'll keep an eye on you and make sure you don't turn into murdertroll, and it'll be fun! Just you and me and a house full of liquor. It's like.. the best of all possible worlds, of all friggin stupid timelines or dreambubbles or whatever the hell. What can _possibly_ go wrong!"

She's already filled both wine glasses near to the brim with tequila and Cointreau, and ducks past him long enough to find what more she needs in the kitchen. (Who the hell needs to stay restricted to just shots? Not this girl.) He follows behind her like an oversized attack puppy, watching her mix up the most wicked of margaritas. When she's done, she holds the marginally less filled glass up to him with a smile that's supposed to be innocent and charming, yet she knows is just a shade shy of devious. "It'll be _fiiiine!_ Come on, don't be a lame ass party pooper. Just a sip can't hurt."

Her smile turns from devious to lascivious when he takes it out of her hand.

\---

The first time that they'd met, he'd been a bundle of murdernerves, his face paint smeared and scratched bare in places, a trio of angry indigo lines across his face that were just starting to knit back together. She hadn't been much better off, either, and her first reaction was that this was some sort of wannabe or future Subjugulator ready to get his murder-death-kill haterage on with any fresh human meat asking to be culled just for walking up on the surface. She had to make a snap decision - fight or flight - and as things would have it, she in a much more aggrieving mood than in an absconding one.

In retrospect, she's positive it would've turned into something downright nasty - for her - if he hadn't gotten that glancing blow in that split her temple open. Head wounds are always the ones that bleed the worst. Everyone knows that. But she had never known a troll before who'd freak out in quite that way at the sight of a human's bright red blood.

With all the fight suddenly gone from him, he was reduced to a cowering too-tall adolescent, going on and on in convoluted circles about his pale bro. It would've been way too easy to take advantage of that, to finish him off while he was down and out for the count. And besides, there was just .. something about him that she couldn't help but pity in an entirely un-troll-like and very human way.

He was all awkward limbs and awkward feelings, a terrible, terrifying mix of a strung up junky finally gone cold turkey and a rage-hormone driven troll of the violent (violet) upper castes that was only just starting to realize the power that his blood pusher pumped through him, empowering and enslaving him both. His life and future were crushed, his friends dead in front of him - or by his own hands - and he had virtually no one left to turn to. He hated everyone and everything, wanted to rip it all limb from limb, just as much as he wanted a hug. Or a shoosh-pap. Whatever the fuck trolls really got off on when they were horn-deep in self-inflicted and self-directed grimdark feelings. He had a moirail, his pale bro, that - from everything she could tell - seemed to alternate between being absolutely terrified of him and the best possible thing out there to keep him grounded.

She didn't find out most of that until much, much later, but the scars were as raw as the ones that he wore for all the world to see.

Against her better judgment, she ended up papping the hell out of his ridiculous, messed-up face.

\---

Getting drunk in a dream bubble is both very similar to and very different from getting drunk for reals. And, she's decided, it's _much_ better.

For starters, she's pretty sure that even if they were drinking something like wine or beer, she still wouldn't have to stop to use the bathroom every half hour. But that's not even the best part. The best part is that the whole woozy floaty lightheaded buzz is much less woozy than it should be, and it never quite dives into that nasty stick-to-the-stomach phase. And she's pretty sure there's no way to die of alcohol poisoning if what they're drinking is not even _real_.

And, for once, she actually gets to be drunk with someone else, even if he's barely touched his drink and she's on her sixth. Seventh. Something. Nth. That's more worth it than anything else.

"And.... _aaaaand_ to top it _aaaalllllll_ off, I think AR's even flushed for that bastart, just like Di-Stri an' Janey." She's practically lying on top of him, both of them sprawled out on the big couch in the living room, and when she tries to take another sip, the angle's all wrong and she spills more of it on her shirt than she gets in her mouth. She giggles, completely uncaring to how the dampness continues to spread after repeated mishaps. "And I'm like.. seriously? _Seriously?_ Oh em eff gee, I am laughing my fucking ass off so hard here it's sitting on the ground~ Can glasses really _seriously_ crush on someone? I mean, admittedly he is a sum- spumtious- scrum _diddly_ umpishous hunk of man meat, but that's like bio-physio-ecto-lectro-logically impossible, I'm _preeeeeeetty_ totes sure."

He's got one hand caught up in her hair, fingers sliding through it with tips rubbing against her scalp like she's supposed to have horns somewhere and he can't quite find them but still doesn't quite care that they're missing. It feels nice, really nice, and she doesn't want him to stop. "Damn, girl," he says, and with her head on his chest, it feels like the words just rumble straight through her to the bone and she tries not to shiver. "Sounds like a setup for a regular motherfucking troll romcom, except without all the black sparks flying past. But hey, give it time, and I bet at least one of those motherfuckers starts to get his hate on with someone else in a real good way, and that's when shit'll start to get really interesting. Pale bro loves that sorta thing, eats it right on up. I bet he'd like to get his motherfucking watch on with them all carrying on like they're in some motherfucking amateur hack, Quadrants Gone Wild, or some shit like that."

She laughs, and this time when she spills more of her drink, she finally notices just how wet the front of her shirt is. How inconvenient! (How opportune.) She pats his knee with her free hand to let him know to ease up on petting her hair, then pushes herself up to sit - and laughs again when the room starts to tilt just a little bit more than it should. "Okay, okay. But see, that's the best part. _None_ of them realize what's going on, and it's _aaaaallllll_ on me me me to give them the first fucking _clue_ that they should actually just say something to each other! It's- it's ridonkulous. Ridiculous! Whatever!"

She knows she probably shouldn't, but she finishes the rest of her glass before putting it on the table. "And! Speaking of this of which we are speaking most fortun- fortit- for- most, oh _hell_ \- that we are wont to do in what can only possibly be the most messed up of feeling jams in all of _ever_ , I think it would be either a very good or a _very very_ bad time for me to say that you, sir, are the finest prince charming troll that I ever dreamed of - I mean, _with_ \- and possibly maybe more scrum-dumcious than Mr. English, and my shirt is soaking wet, and I kind of really _reeeeeeally_ need to take it off right now, which means this is going to be either incredibly awkward or fucking awesome, and I should also probably shut my drunk self ass up right now before I straight up propros- prop- prosipition- _ask_ you if you'd ever be up for sexytimes, because this is suddenly also totes embarrassing and nowhere near as smooth as I wanted it to be."

During all of that, he just sits there, silent, watching, his carefully painted face a mask against whatever he's really thinking. And, right when it's gotten to the point where she's positive that it's moved on to _incredibly awkward_ , and the flush across her cheeks isn't just from the booze, he just tilts his head to the side and smiles slow and wide and says in that lazy voice that means he's actually feeling good for a change, "I could be all about some 'fucking awesome' sexytimes with a sister."

Oh hell yes.

" _Reeeeeeeeeeeally,_ " she asks but doesn't quite ask, feeling a bit more of the giddy-lightheadedness of the dream buzz. And it's _great_ timing. "Yeah, motherfucking _reeeeally_ ," he just drawls right back at her, and the way that he fails to mimic her voice breaks the tension and suddenly she's giggling again.

"Well, then, _sir_ , perhaps I shall slip into something more comfortable. Or just into something less. Out of. Not into."

"You mean," he says, running the back of one jagged claw down the side of her face, and this time she can't help but shiver, "Your motherfucking shirt's soaking wet. Better get you outta it before you catch a motherfucking cold. Now ain't _that_ the motherfucking truth."

She turns her head and catches the side of his finger between her teeth, leering perhaps just a bit more than she is grinning. "That is totes _obvs_ the motherfucking truth."

\---

The second time they'd met, she'd been a bit confused at first. It was weird, having part of her knowing what was going on all of the time, and another part - the waking part - that was totally oblivious of her slumberland shenanigans. She recognized him, her fucked up dream troll, but she hadn't quite realized that he was .. well.. really _real_. Dirk had told her more than a few times about what he'd seen and done on Derse, how he'd keep an eye on her sometimes while she slept (the fucking perv), but she also realized that if that was where she was waking up - if she were really practicing conscious dreaming in another plane of existence - then somehow she only managed to open her eyes and become aware after she'd sleepwalked away from the moon.

Thinking about it too hard always just made her want to scream and punch through a wall, neither of which were terribly productive in terms of shedding light on anything, so she typically ended up punching only a minimal number of walls. At least they were all dream walls, so they never really mattered.

So when she ran into him again, it was kind of weird. But also.. kind of really nice. He became her first constant in that ever changing dreamland.

It'd been a few weeks - maybe a full perigee, even - and he looked like he was more tired than he was in a devious murdermode downswing. Actually, it looked like he hadn't slept the whole time, and when she'd said as much, she was mildly disturbed when she found out that wasn't too far from the truth. It wasn't until much later that they'd figured out that if he slept in a dream bubble, the horrorterrors couldn't creep their psycho alien speak into his mind, like if he were back on the meteor.

They'd sat and talked then. The setting was great for it - some weirdly colored, desolate landscape by an ocean that stretched as far as the eye could see, uninterrupted by neither house nor hive. He said it was on Alternia, somewhere, his home world. He said it was a lot like a place where he grew up, though it wasn't quite the same. He said he didn't want to talk about it anymore, so instead she filled the silence with a hundred stories of Earth, of herself, of what it was like growing up all alone underground. She pretended to not notice the way he sometimes made that face that said, clear as day, that his blood pusher was hurting for everything she'd never had, for the fact she was willing to tell him about it.

When she mentioned her meowcats, he smiled and said that he had a friend who liked animals a lot. But then he went really quiet again and didn't say anything more, so she just kept talking.

And when she ran out of things to say, they just sat there and watched the second moon slowly rise above the water, and everything felt just so .. _calm_. He put his arm around her, pulled her close, ran his long fingers through her hair and across her scalp like she was his pale bro, and she slipped her arm around his waist like she'd always imagined she'd do with Dirk if they ever were to meet, and she savored every minute of the silence.

\---

The fact that he's a troll doesn't bother her. She's long ago come to terms that there might be some among the enemy whose company she'd actually like, and, well, _technically_ he's not even part of the enemy, what with being from another universe and all. The fact that he's a troll isn't too startling, either. The novelty of aliens like him became passé sweeps, if not centuries, ago.

The fact that he's a troll is kind of exciting, really.

He's almost too big for her, and not just with his freaky troll bulge. She doesn't mind; she's surprised and kind of really glad that he's willing to go slow, that he doesn't use his claws or teeth anywhere near as much as she's always thought trolls did during sex with one another. Maybe they do. She's pretty sure that this sort of interspecies recreation doesn't happen all that often.

Hearing about it, or reading, or even seeing photos or videos of alien junk is way different from seeing it in person. "Wow," she says, then, "So can I touch it?" He takes her hand in his, turning it over and kissing her knuckles all light and careful, just like he'd kissed her lips and mouth, and then says in turn, "Was hoping a sister would ask."

She traces her fingers along the strange ridges of his bulge and across the softer folds of his nook. It's cool to the touch, just like the rest of him; it feels both smooth and rough like sharkskin, and there's this sticky-slickness that's starting to spread that's not entirely unpleasant. "Wow," she says again, and giggles, wrapping her fingers around his bulge and stroking down to the base, and she remembers that phrase that Dirk used a few times. "Never thought I'd get a handful of alien wingwong."

"Ain't that a motherfucking miracle," he agrees, then makes this completely amazing sound that's half a purr and half something else. She grins, drawing her thumb back along that one spot of his bulge that she's pretty sure was the cause of it, then grins wider when he makes the noise again. When she tries exploring with her other hand, fingers tracing along the edges of his seedflap, he goes all shivery, humming in the back of his throat, and says, "Lower, sis, just a little bit lower."

She obliges him and finds his nook, first letting her fingers ghost along the outside folds, and then slips the tip of one in when he makes this soft needy keen. And, oh, it's kind of like what she has, she decides, only not exactly, and she takes her time in slowly sliding her finger in and up and down to find out just how different he is - and how much the same. It's also pretty damn cool that he seems to like that even better, what with the way his breath keeps hitching, and how his fingers knead at her nape, and the way he tells her just how motherfucking miraculous she is.

He explores her, too, slow and careful and just as curious about how she's built as she is of him. When he asks if she has a secret bulge hidden somewhere, she just laughs and says no, says that most humans are built differently, but it's hard talking when he rubs the back of his knuckle against her clit and slips his tongue inside, so she stops trying and draws her fingers across the base of one of his horns, just to feel the way his answering purr rumbles all the way through her. When he finally comes up with his lazy smile and his pupils dilated, he watches the way she tries to catch her breath for a minute and then says, "At least you ended up with the better half of the deal, what with that freaky alien bulge-nook split shit you've got going on." And she can't help but agree, and when he shows her later on just how to press her fingers up inside him, and curl them forward just a bit, she completely gets why he likes that better than anything she does with his bulge.

It's when they try it with her on top, straddling his thighs as he sits back on the couch, that she fully realizes just how _big_ he is, and at first she's worried that it's not going to work this way. He's okay with that, though, and that just makes her want to try again, and oh _god_ is she glad they do when she finally eases down on him, bit by tiny bit, until she's only halfway to his lap. And she laughs and says she's sorry, says she can already feel him just starting to press against the back of her, and he reaches out and fucking _shooshes_ her right then and there, settling her against his chest with her head tucked up beneath his chin even though he's already breathing heavy. When he asks her if she's ready, and she says yes, he starts doing this thing - kind of like he's twisting and turning, and really almost _rippling_ in the same way a snake moves, bunching up its muscles and then pushing them in a new direction - and it's all she can do but hold onto him. It's nothing at all like how she's imagined sex with another human would be; the movement's all wrong. But that's not a bad thing.

In fact, it's a really _really_ good thing.

When they're finally spent and lying in a tangled pile on the other end of the couch - the end they hadn't made a mess of, completely uncaring since it's just a dream bubble somewhere in the middle of nothing, transient and self-reparable - she finds that she feels relaxed, content, and it's a strange but good feeling. His hair is soft and dry and feels almost like really long meowcat fur. She likes drawing her fingers through it, unsnagging the tangles so it falls in a loose dark halo around his head. 

She likes the way he purrs, and she wishes she could, too. She settles for lazy smiles instead.

Outside, the light's slowly fading from pastels to greys, and the way it filters through the windows turns everything inside sort of flat. Sort of dull. "Bubble's almost over," she sighs. "Yeah," he just says in return, tracing unseen patterns across her back and shoulders with the backs of his claws. When the dream passes away, fading back into the nothing, he'll be back on his meteor and she'll be .. well, somewhere in that nothing until she wakes up.

She wishes she could stay here longer, and she's pretty sure that he'd wish the same. He's told her some about the meteor, about the lab on it, and while it sounds like he stays busy - learning all of its secret hidey holes, learning the intricacies of what his rage can be and do when it's both there and not there at all - he always sounds kind of sad when he talks it. She knows just why his pale bro pities him so much, because she can't help but do the same. She curls around him tighter and rubs her fingers through his hair and across his scalp.

He makes another of those louder purring sighs, then starts to murmur in that low, lilting cadence of his that's almost musical, "It's gonna be rough leaving behind my wicked little sister this time, but that's how all those miracles go, fading in and out, like they're all flowing here and there. And ain't no way in knowing how they really work, what they really mean, but I kinda like spending time in them. And damn, girl, ain't no way in hell that this motherfucker's gonna get the same kinda pity from his pale brother back on a rock where it's still all one against the other after all this murderraging, murderraging-"

With a laugh, she reaches up and paps his mouth - overreaching it a bit and catching the side of his nose instead, but she still manages to cut him off. "Mr. Makara, are you actually _rapping_ at me?" He laughs, too. "Yeah, I guess I right up and was. Got kinda caught up in the moment, you know? Been a while since I tried out any fresh jams, but what's a motherfucker to do but listen to what his blood pusher's telling him when it feels like the right motherfucking thing to do."

"Yeah," she agrees, though it still strikes her as funny in a kind of awkward-sweet sort of way. And it fits right in with that one side of him that's not a cunning deathmonger, the side that he says was always made stronger by eating all that sopor. She imagines it's even nicer now that it's not as forced. "I think you and Di-Stri should meet sometime and have some sort of epic rap-off, if only for the lulz. It'd be hilariously terrible."

He murmurs, "You tell that motherfucker anytime, any place, and I will motherfucking school him in the ways of the Murdermirthful Messiahs reborn." And he's lightly scratching at her nape and scalp like there's nothing more in the entire universe he'd rather do than have a post coital feelings jam on a couch in a dream bubble in the middle of nowhere with some crazy alien from another universe who won't even remember him when she wakes up.

\---

When she sleeps and dreams, everything makes more sense.

When she wakes, mind still fuzzy from a cloud of alcohol, she tries to remember - something important, something _real_ \- but it always slips away. There was something good this time, really good, kind of like there've been somethings that were scary before, too. But it's gone now, and as she gets up off of her pile of plush toys, she remembers that she had a lot to do today.

There's a message from Dirk on her laptop. Or maybe it's from AR. The flashing icon's the same. Either way, that's kind of convenient since there's something that she needs to tell him if she can damn well remember it.

And if she can't. Well.

It couldn't have been anything too important.


End file.
